The Taiwan High Court on Thursday ruled against political commentators Chiu Yi (邱毅) and Lin Ruey-tou (林瑞圖) in a libel suit from 2012, saying that the men made groundless accusations and ordered them to pay compensation to the victim.
The High Court’s Kaohsiung branch reversed a district court decision against former Kaohsiung City Environmental Protection Bureau head Lee Mu-sheng (李穆生), who was seeking NT$25 million (US$794,155) in damages from Chiu and Lin.
The court ordered Chiu and Lin to pay NT$150,000 each in compensation.
The case was launched in relation to a separate case over alleged corruption by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世).
Lin Yi-shih was found guilty of corruption and other related charges in a ruling by the High Court in February, and was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison, and was ordered to pay a NT$15.8 million fine.
The ruling was appealed to the Supreme Court and the case is pending.
During the investigation into Lin Yi-shih, it was said that Lee, as head of the bureau, was involved in underhanded deals.
Appearing on a political TV show in 2012, former KMT legislator Chiu and Taipei City Councilor Lin Ruey-tou accused Lee of soliciting and receiving NT$300,000 in bribes for helping the Kaohsiung-based Ti Yung Co (地勇選礦公司) secure a slag treatment contract from state-owned China Steel Corp’s subsidiary.
Lee filed a libel suit, saying that Chiu and Lin Ruey-tou had not verified the information, and they had defamed him and damaged his reputation.
During the trial, Chiu said he researched the information and knew prosecutors were about to launch an investigation into the case, adding that his remarks were in the public interest and therefore he had done nothing wrong.
Lin Ruey-tou said he received tip-offs from members of the public who wished to remain anonymous, and that he had contacts in prosecutors’ offices to inform him of impending investigations, and that his conversations with the sources were protected under the Constitution’s freedom of speech clause.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.